Happy Father’s Day to all the angling dad’s out there. Today I had the pleasure to spend the day with a father and his son in my boat. While my dad wasn’t much of a fisherman, he and I connected with golf and baseball and his kindness.
What ever it is you can connect on is good.

If you are getting out for the big day, or making plans for the week ahead, I hope this report helps you be ready for the best days on the water you can have.

The Metolius River is seeing good fishing in the upper, middle and lower sections of the river.
In the Upper river from the headwaters down to gorge campground the fish are looking up at golden stone patterns like a Clarks and Norm Woods, and also yellow sally’s, PMD’s and caddis. Nymphs and dries will serve you well here, and matching the hatches listed but also adding zebra midges, walt’s worms, frenchie’s, and assorted perdigons will be great to use throughout the day.
On the middle river you’ll see an afternoon green drake hatch coming on sometime after 3 and lasting until about 5 or so. You won’t have 2 solid hours of the big green bugs hatching, but within that 2 hour window of your day you should see a good hatch that gets the fish excited. PMD and BWO and Caddis can hatch almost any time from noon to about 8, and in the evening you can expect more caddis hatches and finish the evening with a rusty spinner in a #16. Caddis for me is usually matched with an iris caddis, but the Silvey’s edible emerger, corn fed and Keller’s caddis are worth adding to your fly box too. Another good fly to add is a henryville. Not only does it imitate a caddis, but it’s one of our favorites to match a little olive stonefly which have been abundant already.
In the lower river from Bridge 99 down the hatches are a surprising mix of what we see in the upper and middle river areas. It’s so weird the pockets of water temperature changes and what that does to insect life. So look for some stoneflies to mix in, but really focus on drakes, PMD’s and caddis.
FFP guide Troy has been guiding on the House on Metolius and mentioned that there is a lot more bull trout around, which makes me believe some of the lake run fish are already moving up. If this is true, they will be spread out from the canyon down to bridge 99 and good fishing for bulls this summer is looking good. Bring your 8 weight and a sink tip and some big, articulated streamers and go.

A crippled green drake from 6/19/2027

FFP guides Troy, Steve, Michael and Sequoia all said they had a good week on the Lower Deschutes on tan and brown x-caddis, elk hair caddis, tan pupa and either 2 bit hookers or micro mayfly nymphs.
We’ve been on the day stretch from Warm Springs to Trout Creek, and the camp float from Trout Creek to Harpham and all in all seeing solid fishing.
One of the joys of summer, today being the longest daylight hours of the year, and the weeks to come keep providing that gift to those of us who like to stay late and drift out, or walk out at dark, you get the “magic hour” where the dry fly action is the best pf the day at dusk. This can also be a good time to swing a soft hackle, but it’s really a special moment to fish a purple haze #12-16, pale evening dun #14, fin fetcher caddis or iris caddis in a #16 and a rusty spinner #14-16.
Throughout the day you will find most of the afternoon to be with nymphs and small streamers and the better dry fly action later in the day.
If you’re on the water camping, a lot of these warm mornings can also be good dry fly moments, but imagine yourself in a knee deep riffle with a nymph rod and a tan caddis pupa on the point and a pmd colored 2 bit hooker on the dropper tag. What a combination for summer!

Sequoia has been guiding on the Crooked River quite a bit and reports to me that the fish are looking up to x-caddis and eating a black 2 bit hooker on the nymph rod. I had some good guys on the lake a couple of days ago and they had been having continued success on the Ray Charles and perdigons.
I wonder if the fish are eating the Ray Charles as a scud or as a sow bug? My guess is scuds, as this river has such a great population them!
Zebra midge, rainbow warrior, fire starter, skinny nelson and amber colored psycho prince are some other great nymphs to run under your indi, or tight line the euro rod.
2 other things to fish are soft hackles and small euro jig streamers. Given the choice, the soft hackle on the Crooked is one of the best places in Central Oregon to swing one.

I had some killer reports on the Fall River this week! There is a good mix of dries and nymphs and streamers, with the dries consisting of PMD’s, yellow sally, olive caddis, ants, beetles and midges. There have been some really heavy hatches of yellow sally’s so make sure you have some if you’re headed to our little spring creek, and PMD hatches have also been above average.
For streamers there are several ways to fish them, dead drift balanced leeches or micro leeches under a strike indicator, or strip zonkers and sculpins on a sink tip or floating line, or euro/tight line the jig streamers like a slum lord or Croston’s minnow.
Fall River gets busy most days of the year, but this time of the summers its often crowded from 10 to 4. Consider an early morning or after dinner trip to counter that and have a more peaceful outing.

And on the McKenzie River I know the guides association ran the stocking boat down the river recently, and there is a good mix of hatchery rainbows, wild rainbows and whitefish and some other catches of occasional cutthroat and bull trout. Targeting bull trout is not allowed on the McKenzie, but from time to time they get caught on a nymph or streamer while fishing for the other trout.
Eric and Troy both report that the weed growth is heavier than normal, and they are being careful to not fish their clients nymphs or streamers too deep, instead relying on a short dropper tag off a dry fly, or being thoughtful about how much tippet is below the sighter to keep the nymphs from getting covered in green gunk. Eric had a lot of luck on red perdigons and small leeches, and Troy reports purple haze, McKenzie caddis, yellow sally and chubby’s.

Stillwaters

I spent the week in the volcano fishing both East Lake (x3) and Paulina Lake (x2) this week. For the most part, fishing was outstanding 4 of the 5 days.
One important thing to mention is that today East Lake got pretty green. I can’t be sure if this is a turnover of some kind, I wouldn’t think so as the water temps start in the morning about 54 and get to 60-61F in the afternoon. So it’s not a cold sink mixing with the bottom and bringing junk up. What I suspect is a heavy pollen coating on the surface is contributing to a surface algae. As of this evening, I would not choose to go back to East for a few days and let that clear up. In some places there was zero issue, but the water was much greener all over the lake than it was 2 days ago.
Speaking of 2 days ago I had a couple of guys from Project Healing Waters, Val who runs the program in Central Oregon and Colin who is a volunteer. They put the smack down on the fish! We used a drop back bung with a black chironomid/red but/silver rib in the morning with a lot of good fish. Also the Croston’s callibaetis and the CB cate nymph were just producing a lot of bobber downs.
When the callibaetis hatch came off the tilt wing dun was all we needed. I tied one on for Colin as the hatch began and he immediately was catching fish on it.
After lunch the hatch subsided quickly and we moved to loch style drifting with the drogue and fished jiggy beetles off the banks, and ended the day in the deeper waters with a type 7 full sink deep dangling duct tape’s and Val caught one of the biggest browns of the season so far doing that.
Today the wind was strong (and cold) from the west, and callibaetis were virtually non existent, but we did okay on the nymphs I mention above. Beetle action was consistent and we got one decent brown on a deep dangle with a duct tape fly in about 30 feet deep out from the resort.
Many thanks to the East Lake resort for their docks and their fair price to use the launch and park there. For $5, for me to be able to have a safe place to launch an 18 foot boat is a gift. East Lake has been my go to spot for fishing since about 1973, and the resort makes it just as special today as it’s ever been.

Paulina Lake was really good one day this week, and the next day was not the same. That is just how lakes can go.
On both days the jiggy beetle was the fly to choose, but on the better of the 2 days we also had a lot of fish on a yellow jacket pattern. Why a yellow jacket? someone I was talking to had heard of an angler who caught a whole bunch of fish on a yellow jacket last week. I was surprised by this, because I usually don’t think of bee’s until september and october. I was so skeptical I tied up Milt’s leader with a dropper tag with the bee on the dropper tag and the beetle on point. The fish happily ate both and he was happy too.
We also had good fishing under an indicator with brown balanced leech, dark assasin and good ol’ callibaetis cate.
Make sure to try chironomids, red PT jigs, scuds and other colors of balanced leeches.

This week I will share our Crane Prairie report from our customer Micah. Here is what he had to say:
Much better fishing at CP today. 3 of us fishing and got about 20 bobber downs. Lost quite a few but lots of action, especially in the morning. Best fly was a red 2 bit hooker. 2 Kokanee were caught on red holo point jig. Biggest bow was a nice 19 inch wild. 

Our guide Micheal was guiding at Hosmer Lake this week and he had good fishing on callibaetis, especially on the callibaetis cate nymph. He was using it stripped on an intermediate line and under an indicator. The mayfly hatch was good and the fish were up eating duns, but Micheal also said he was getting some fish up to eat a chubby. That’s always fun in the lakes.
Alderflies, traveling sedges, beetles, ants and caenis mayflies (dusk and dawn) and damsels are all important, plus leeches and scuds can be tremendously important flies for hosmer too.
With the low water a single nymphs under a small indicator is great, usually 2 to 4 feet is all you’ll get without putting the fly down in the moss and weeds. Jigs and balanced flies are a hit here!

Gavin and our friend Mark were at Little Lava and they were geeking on using a washing line leader with an intermediate line, and with a long leader putting a booby on the tag, and a callibaeits nymphs (like the poxyback) on the 1st dropper tag, and a diawl bach on the 2nd tag (called the “bob”). This requires a longer leader, and here is how to make it: use 3 to 4 feet of 15# Seaguar fluorocarbon and loop that to your fly line, and tie a tippet ring to the end (I prefer the oval Japanese rings for this) and then add 10 to 12 feet of 4x fluorocarbon tippet and add 2 tags with a triple surgeons knot, the 1st 4 feet up from the point fly, and the second tag spread another 4 feet up from the 1st tag. The slow sinking intermediate line pulls the poxyback and diawl bach under while the foam eyes booby fly helps suspend them and keeps them from going too deep. This is killer over weedbeds and when the fish are focused on emergers.
When the hatch is on a purple haze, tilt wing and extended body callibaetis are wonderful duns, and try a captive dun and almost dun as your emergers.
Beetles and the Quigley flag ant are super for after the hatch.
Leeches and Chironomids under an indicator is always a good bet on any of our lakes.

Three Creek Lake is really fishing well, with callibaetis, black x caddis, chironomids, ants and beetles and bruised balanced leeches being the top flies.
Evening caddis action is heating up on the x caddis, and tuck a few lady mcconnell’s for any evening chironomid hatches. callibaetis you should see in the afternoon and again some in the evening.
For beetles we like the jiggy, a red or black hippie stomper and a low floating Crowe beetle.
It’s hard to go wrong with a sheep creek special and trail a flashback PT on a camo line here. You can kick and troll or anchor and strip with good success on this combo.

Travel

Argentina trips are booking up. The 2nd January trip is full, the week before (1/9-16) is half full. December right now is just me and my friend Rick. Last year in December was the finest fishing in Patagonia I have ever seen. This is one you don’t want to miss joining me on, and you’ll be back for Christmas with 12 days to spare!
Chile is getting some good bookings the 2nd week at the Baker River, but just 2 spots so fat filled at Magic Waters Feb 27 to March 6. We’d love to have you join us here.
May 1-7 is our hosted week in Belize. The remaining spots I think will fill quickly so let me know if you want one or two to share.

This week has been 5 guide trip days, and next week is the same. I am getting old for that many guide days in the week. Next year I am saying no more than 3 per week. This old guy is tired.
Happy Father’s Day weekend to all of the dads out there. Happy fishing to all of our friends out there.
All of us at FFP appreciate your support.

Jeff
along with Mattias, Steve, Troy, Micheal, Sequoia, Eric, Gavin F, Gavin C, Aaron, Shad, Phil, Steve B, Mark, Chris, Adison and Doug. This team is the way things get accomplished week after week for you, and for each other.